I didn’t catch the name of the company selling these places, or their website, but it really brought me back to Pamela’s post from earlier today. How much longer are people really going to salivate over the suburban dream?

Sure, refurbed factory condos in the center of Marlborough offer households without children many of the things city living allows: a few services with walkable proximity, a couple interesting shops, and somewhat-diminished carbon footprint from owning part of a building, instead of an entire property.

But while these features even come without some of the less-desirable elements of city life (parking hassles, noise, crime), you’re still stuck in traffic for events in the city proper: the best hospitals in the country, Red Sox games, concerts at the Garden, fireworks and the BSO on the Fourth, New Year’s Eve in Copley Square, tastings at one of the best microbreweries on the East Coast, and plenty more things besides.

Spacious and inexpensive condos from Weymouth to Needham to Marlborough to Lawrence are always tempting, but with the cost of gas going up, and the time I have to deal with hassles going down, a location as central as I can afford is always going to win out.

Having said that, Marlborough Street remains just a touch out of my reach—though a few more down days on Wall Sreet and the duck-and-cover asset management strategy I adopted last August might just get me there.

240 Marlborough #2B
Boston, MA 02116
1 beds, 1 bath
515 sq. ft.
$359,000

371 Marlborough #4
Back Bay, MA 02115
1 bed, 1 bath
843 sq. ft.
$549,000

121 Marlborough St #5
Back Bay, MA 02116
2 beds, 2.5 baths
1,174 sq. ft.
$1,350,000

How It All Began, Almost a Decade Ago

Boston Sweet Digs Home

Photo: flickr user dehub, under cc-by-nc-sa-2.0.

Another tidbit from the interview: the Massachusetts State Employee pension fund is down a mere 8% this calendar year. Not only is that well below the losses (20-25%) suffered by the market as a whole, but it’s also better than my own 401k, which dropped 15% since January.

Despite the relatively unscathed state of the Commonwealth’s finances, and unlike many people who limited their market exposure over the past year (myself included), Cahill is 100% behind Henry Paulsen’s bailout plan. He argues that less available credit will hurt small business and education, areas where debt can be a potent economic stimulator.

Most importantly, Cahill said “We’re closer to the bottom. I don’t know if were at the bottom, but were certainly close to the bottom. Once we hit bottom, the markets will start coming back and we’ll start moving up.”

So what better time to buy? Volatile markets are no time to horse-jump between stock investments, and with a looming bailout and a Fed chairman who’s on record saying inflation is good for America, do you really want to keep liquid assets lying around? Especially if you exceeded the $100,000 FDIC guarantee, those bank accounts are better invested in brick and mortar.

Here are some cost reductions from the market-proven neighborhood of Back Bay, just to whet your home-buying appetite.

306 Comm Ave #4
Back Bay, MA 02115
2 beds, 1 bath
880 sq. ft.
Old Price: $719,000
New Price: $699,000

223 Beacon St, #1
Boston, MA 02116
2 beds, 2.5 baths
1,459 sq. ft.
Old Price: $894,000
New Price: $865,000

180 Commonwealth Ave, #A
Back Bay, MA 02116
1 bed, 1 bath
812 sq. ft.
Old Price: $619,000
New Price: $589,000

Then there was the monumental failure of his highly-touted casino plan, which was doubly humiliating, as much of the opposition came from an allegedly friendly legislature. Did I mention he’d already spent a good deal of the money those casinos were supposed to bring in?

But, as Tommy Carcetti would say, a new day is dawning. A day where every construction site from here to West Stockbridge can get its business done without a mandatory, state-funded, overtime-paid on-site policeman.  And what’s truly impressive is the political manuvering the Governor did to bring it about.

So a new day under the dome means new listings on Beacon Hill. I mean, what else are you going to do? Lose money in the market? Watch your cash depreciate in a bank account?

47 Chestnut Street
Beacon Hill, MA 02108
6 beds,  4 baths
3,600 sq. ft.
$4,100,000

21 Revere Street, #5
Beacon Hill, MA 02114
2 beds, 1.5 baths
955 sq. ft.
$699,000

100 Chestnut Street, #1
Beacon Hill, MA 02108
2beds, 2 baths
1,373 sq. ft.
$1,395,000

People wonder at the growing gap between rich and poor in this country. In fact, our current Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson (at right), said he aimed to suture that festering gash when he took the office two years ago. I guess he can pat himself on the back now for a very Bushian “mission accomplished” with today’s bailout plan.

Yes, this bailout will almost certainly cost taxpayers less than the protracted recession and possible collapse that would occur otherwise. But what it won’t do is stop another population of return-hungry fund managers from making similarly idiotic decisions in the future; if anything, it encourages the short-sighted, win-that-bonus culture that brought us here in the first place.

So while we as a nation may suffer less collectively, the people who lost thousands of dollars for millions of Americans still get to the keep the sky-high wages they earned in doing so.  This lack of accountability incentivizes irresponsible behavior in the future, while punishing those who saved prudently and limited their market exposure.

I don’t have numbers on this, but I’m willing to bet the average incomes of those heavily invested in financial firms are several orders of magnitude above those squirreling funds away in savings accounts.  It’s taxes on those same savings accounts that will keep the firms of rich investors afloat through the current financial crisis.

I love the free market as much as anyone, but as they say in Spiderman, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Irresponsible abuse of lightly-regulated markets leads to catastrophic loss.  Intentionally sloppy bookkeeping doesn’t help. And sometimes (IHMO)  you’ve just gotta make people pay for their own mistakes.

But no one wants the blood of another Great Depression on their hands, and so the cycle of boom and bust continues. The good news, I guess, is that for those wealthy enough to buy a house in the toniest of neighborhoods, there will likely be someone else willing to pay more a few years down the line. So that having been said, here are some open houses that rich people will continue to be able to afford:

24 Marlborough St #5
Back Bay, MA 02116
2 beds, 1.5 baths
980 sq. ft.
$949,900
Open House, Sunday, September 21, 2008 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM

15 River St #602
Beacon Hill, MA 02108
2 beds, 1 bath
797  sq. ft.
$679,000
Open House: Sunday, September 21, 2008 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM

108 Mount Vernon St #1
Beacon Hill, MA 02108
3 beds, 3 baths
1,640  sq. ft.
$1,595,000
Open House: Sunday, September 21, 2008 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM

And You Thought Politics was Boring

Boston Sweet Digs Home

Anyway, I’m gonna be out of town this weekend for a wedding, but that doesn’t mean you can’t scope some of the lovely open houses in Back Bay this Sunday. As you may or may not know, the summer buying season is officially over, meaning prices are down, and your opportunity to snag deals is up!

And, just as an aside, there are few places so close in Boston as pretty as the Comm Ave mall when the leaves start to turn. It’s nothing to match, say, the blood-red maples of Bromley Mountain or the sheer beauty of the Berkshires, but it’s as close as you can get within reasonable distance of downtown.

296 Commonwealth #5
Back Bay, MA 02115
2 beds, 2 baths
1,468 sq. ft.
$1,099,000
Open House, Sunday, September 14, 2008 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM

103 Beacon #1
Back Bay, MA 02116
Price:
1 bed, 1 bath
845 sq. ft.
$560,000
Open House, Sunday, September 14, 2008 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM

370 Marlborough #1
Back Bay, MA 02115
1 bed, 1 bath
802 sq. ft.
$439,000
Sunday, September 14, 2008 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM

Welcome to Townieville, Population: You

Boston Sweet Digs Home